20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports? • Hacker News Board

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#691

Post by heavyset_go » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

GhostVII wrote: post #537

We should have some kind of dashboard tracking how many people die from terrorism, car crashes, heart disease, COVID, etc., and how much time and money we spend trying to prevent these deaths. We are just so terrible at evaluating risk, for some reason it is OK to waste everyone's time with over the top security to stop a tiny portion of terrorism deaths, while still being OK with high speed limits that kill thousand…

In my opinion, this is just statistics worship, and is not unlike a form of utilitarianism. Murder rates are low, but we spend an incredible amount of resources preventing, investigating, prosecuting, imprisoning and executing murderers, even those who have murdered just one person.

While I have significant grievances with the US justice and prison system, I'm okay with expending disproportionate resources to ensure that people don't take others' lives just because they want to or feel entitled to.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#692

Post by earthscienceman » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #652

corey_moncure wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CDC collects these statistics. You would find, for instance, that more black people die each year from falling out of bed than they do at the hands of cops while unarmed (Unironically, provably true; look it up before you downvote... ideally no innocent person would die during police interactions). Clearly, whatever motivates policy and politics has no resemblance to a proportional risk-based assessment.

There is no purpose in comparing those two things as one is self inflicted whereas the other is involves a second party’s actions.

The other problem overlooked in this analogy is that the killings are the most extreme symptom of a tyrannical police force that terrorizes (black) American citizens at an incredibly high rate, from harassment to physical abuse. Protests against the police are using killings as an example of the problem, not the complete summary.

And, to be clear, the police treat white Americans very poorly as well. It's just that they somehow manage to treat black Americans even worse.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#693

Post by throaway46546 » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

xadhominemx wrote: post #498

Supermancho wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where? Are you familiar with any recent bomber story at all? All he needed was some matches and a small amount of plastique. Someone put an incendiary in his underwear. There are tons of possibilities. If you can't name 3 ways other than shoes and underwear, you might be in the group that thinks the TSA is fine.

They scan your body for bulky objects under clothing and X-ray luggage. Shoes are the only other location to hide an explosive device.

How do they get cellphones into prison?

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#694

Post by js2 » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #646

carabiner wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TSA Pre requires fingerprinting and a background check. You definitely give up some privacy in signing up for it. I mean you can unlock some computer devices with fingerprints.

The government already has my fingerprints, because I had to give them to get a passport (edit: I've been informed this was only because I also did Global Entry) and also when I was in elementary school they fingerprinted everyone and also when I got my driver's license. Pretty much if you're a US citizen they already have your fingerprints.

> Pretty much if you're a US citizen they already have your fingerprints.

False. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/how-app...

My spouse and I renewed our passports in the last 10 years, and got our kids passports for the first time. We did not provide fingerprints.

I am a U.S. citizen. I went through an SF86 clearance in the early 2000s and don't recall even that requiring my fingerprints (but I could be wrong about that). I only recall giving up my fingerprints twice:

1. To unlock my Apple devices, safely locked in a secure enclave. 2. For TSA Pre.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#695

Post by Sevii » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

seph-reed wrote: post #673

umvi wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should have some kind of dashboard tracking how many people die from terrorism, car crashes, heart disease, COVID, etc., and how much time and money we spend trying to prevent these deaths It would be a highly controversial dashboard, I guarantee it, likely unpopular with both political parties. The problem is that assuaging fear is often more important (to irrational people) than saving lives. For example, guns…

What if -- and I know this is a crazy idea -- but what if there was some sort of metric beyond popularity by which things were reported? Maybe even decided? For instance: if there was a free online study (in person test) "critical thinking" series of classes, where you could become accredited as a person who knows at least the basics of how lying works, statistics can be manipulated, science is hard, etc, etc, etc...…

Sure but then politics becomes about controlling what's on those tests.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#696

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #658

GhostVII wrote: post #537

We should have some kind of dashboard tracking how many people die from terrorism, car crashes, heart disease, COVID, etc., and how much time and money we spend trying to prevent these deaths. We are just so terrible at evaluating risk, for some reason it is OK to waste everyone's time with over the top security to stop a tiny portion of terrorism deaths, while still being OK with high speed limits that kill thousand…

> We should have some kind of dashboard tracking how many people die from terrorism, car crashes, heart disease, COVID, etc., and how much time and money we spend trying to prevent these deaths It would be a highly controversial dashboard, I guarantee it, likely unpopular with both political parties. The problem is that assuaging fear is often more important (to irrational people) than saving lives. For example, guns…

[deleted]

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#697

Post by mherdeg » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

GhostVII wrote: post #537

We should have some kind of dashboard tracking how many people die from terrorism, car crashes, heart disease, COVID, etc., and how much time and money we spend trying to prevent these deaths. We are just so terrible at evaluating risk, for some reason it is OK to waste everyone's time with over the top security to stop a tiny portion of terrorism deaths, while still being OK with high speed limits that kill thousand…

My gut feeling is that if you look at these data they'll tell you "most people should focus on eating well and getting good amounts of exercise." They might also tell you "kids should learn water safety skills and comply with car seat safety rules scrupulously".

It's hazy now but I remember doing some back-of-the-envelope math in April 2020 to compare risk of death via SARS-CoV-2 infection vs. other causes. I think what I remember seeing was that if you're age 80+ getting COVID is similar to driving 10 million road miles in the US (NHTSA: 1.5 deaths per 100 million road miles; COVID: 15% mortality for infection in ages 80+). I think I remember being totally unable to evaluate the risk to a kid but maybe COVID infection is similar to driving 3000 road miles? (per upper bound at https://fullfact.org/health/bbc-children-covid-risk/). This mostly told me that driving was very risky.

Problems with comparing road miles to disease infection:

(1) being infected also means you're infectious; dying in a car crash doesn't spread exponentially to others

(2) I do not know how to reason about the long-term side effects of COVID on quality adjusted life years

> I bet that if instead of having people go through security at sporting events, you had them all do 20 push ups, you'd save more people from dying of heart disease than would die of terrorism.

I do a qualitative analysis of this every couple of years: should I bike to work?

(1) Cardiovascular fitness improves from exercise

(2) You might get hit by a car and die (worrying about this adds stress even if you don't experience it).

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#698

Post by extra88 » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #646

carabiner wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TSA Pre requires fingerprinting and a background check. You definitely give up some privacy in signing up for it. I mean you can unlock some computer devices with fingerprints.

The government already has my fingerprints, because I had to give them to get a passport (edit: I've been informed this was only because I also did Global Entry) and also when I was in elementary school they fingerprinted everyone and also when I got my driver's license. Pretty much if you're a US citizen they already have your fingerprints.

U.S. passports do not require getting fingerprinted. U.S. Visas require fingerprinting.

I don't think fingerprinting kids is universal or even the norm. I haven't found anything that says it's required anywhere. I have found information about parents having their child's fingerprints in their own records and examples of programs emphasizing that only the family has the record, they're not kept by local government, let alone in a federal system.

https://www.usa.gov/passport

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-inf...

https://www.pcsdma.org/fingerprint.html

https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2006/july/idk...

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#699

Post by myohmy » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #658

GhostVII wrote: post #537

We should have some kind of dashboard tracking how many people die from terrorism, car crashes, heart disease, COVID, etc., and how much time and money we spend trying to prevent these deaths. We are just so terrible at evaluating risk, for some reason it is OK to waste everyone's time with over the top security to stop a tiny portion of terrorism deaths, while still being OK with high speed limits that kill thousand…

> We should have some kind of dashboard tracking how many people die from terrorism, car crashes, heart disease, COVID, etc., and how much time and money we spend trying to prevent these deaths It would be a highly controversial dashboard, I guarantee it, likely unpopular with both political parties. The problem is that assuaging fear is often more important (to irrational people) than saving lives. For example, guns…

Be careful with that reasoning. Its illegal for the CDC to study gun violence as a public health measure. If that happened it might rank on child mortality rates.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#700

Post by asveikau » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

dsauerbrun wrote: post #221

angott wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe you're not required to take off your belt because of an arbitrary rule like shoes in the US. They just tell you to take it off because most belts have metal parts so they will likely trigger the metal detector.

I thought the shoes being taken off wasn't arbitrary. I thought it was because of the shoe bomber(Richard Reed)

> the shoe bomber(Richard Reed)

Hmm, haven't heard that name in a while. I remember all the crazy press about him.

Fascinating details in his Wikipedia article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid :

> The explosive apparently did not detonate due to the delay in the departure of Reid's flight. The rainy weather, along with Reid's foot perspiration, caused the fuse to be too damp to ignite.

Seems his biography was that of a petty criminal whose journey to radicalism began in prison. Pretty sad to think about. One considers an alternate reality in which he would have been rehabilitated beforehand instead. Seems like he might have had some serious problems, though.